


Glain's Tuesday

by blessedharlot



Series: Glain: A Week in the Life [2]
Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Aro Ace Glain Wathen, Canon Asexual Character, Fluff, Gen, Glain Has Hobbies, No Romance, No Sex, Post-Canon, day in the life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 13:02:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22356703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blessedharlot/pseuds/blessedharlot
Summary: Glain helps a friend at the gym.
Relationships: Glain Wathen & Thomas Schreiber
Series: Glain: A Week in the Life [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1608322
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Glain's Tuesday

Thomas was precisely where Wolfe said he would be, the city's public gymnasium. His shirt was clean and dry, so Glain's first thought was that he must not have been working out for very long. 

But then she noticed the half-hearted way he was punching at his long bag.

Wolfe had determined only that Thomas was visiting the gym - deliberately using the city gym instead of the Library facilities available to him - and that he appeared to have some discomfort around it. Wolfe hadn't probed any further, in an effort not to scare Thomas away from the activity entirely. But Wolfe did think Glain could help.

Glain thought he might be right.

She surreptitiously watched her friend for a moment. He wasn't entirely lacking in form. The line of his arm was quite good. But he was swinging that arm as though it was separate from his body. The blow was untethered entirely from the power that his hip and torso and legs could put behind it. 

Thomas knew better than to punch like that. He was holding back rather intentionally, Glain thought. He might do better with something that gets him out of his head.

She approached slowly from an angle he could easily see. When his eyes caught her movement, and then registered who she was, his face lit up for just an instant, before he looked self-conscious again.

"Glain!"

"Hey, Thomas."

"I didn't expect to see you here. Don't you use the Library facilities?"

"Typically, yes, for my own exercise. But I've got a few boxing students I meet here."

It was only a slight falsehood, if a lot misleading. She'd met one civilian here, the niece of a Scholar, to help her with her form.

“What are you up to?” she asked.

“Oh,” Thomas shrugged. “Just something to pull me out of the workshop sometimes. The janitorial staff prefers if I leave once a week or so.”

Glain grinned and nodded at his joke. “How long have you been working on that bag?” she asked.

Thomas screwed his mouth up in an anxious sort of way. “Maybe… maybe a half of an hour?”

“That,” Glain said, “sounds like the perfect-sized warm-up. Why don’t you break from that and meet me in the ring?”

“Oh, I don’t think-”

“Just some light sparring. Come on, I need somebody to keep me on my feet,” Glain said, taking a step toward the ring. “I’m short on my footwork practice.”

Thomas didn’t join her, but he hadn’t re-engaged the bag either. He stood there, looking a little lost.

“You’d be doing me a favor, Thomas.” Glain smiled, then turned and walked to the supply cabinet near the empty sparring ring. 

As soon as she laid hands on a proper sized pair of quick wraps for herself and slid them on, she felt Thomas approaching from behind. She turned and smiled as she adjusted her hands in the protective gear, then reached for the shelves of headguards and pulled out two. They both donned headgear in what Glain thought was a companionable silence. Glain appreciated that Thomas, like herself, could often just make do without speaking if there was nothing much to say. Glain climbed up to the ring apron and held the ropes open as Thomas stepped inside, then she swept in behind him.

“Alright, square up,” she said. He positioned himself properly - for the most part - and she tapped his fists with her own.

“No need for keeping points,” she said, beginning to dance around a bit on the balls of her feet. Thomas still hadn’t moved. “Just some practice dodging and landing blows. Do you have anything in particular you’re working on right now?”

Thomas had his hands up, but he still wasn’t moving his feet. Once Glain had asked the question, she realized he didn’t quite have his eyes focused on her either.

She came down to her full feet on the canvas, and casually stepped in closer to him.

“Thomas,” she said quietly. “How can I help you?”

He stood there, quietly - frozen, she just realized - for a moment longer. Then he turned away from her and walked stiffly to the ropes, climbing through them to leave the ring.

Glain stood for a minute, honestly unsure what to do. Then she climbed out of the ring and followed the corner he took, worried for an instant that she’d have to climb into a shower to check on him. But no, he’d sat down on the first bench he found, just around the corner, in front of a bank of small lockers.

He sat quietly, staring. He was breathing slowly, but heavily, like each inhalation was in preparation of giving an explanation, before the words blew away again and he sighed, and started the cycle over.

“Thomas,” she said. “I think I might have pushed too hard. I’m sorry.”

He kept looking at the floor, his wrapped hands worrying the edge of the bench.

She sat down next to him, without touching him. “Do you want to talk about what happened, so I understand what I did wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” he said.

“I upset you.”

“No. Just… worried,” he corrected. “I don’t go to the Library because people know me there. And they might ask me to work with them.”

“You don’t want to spar, I understand that now.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

He was so different than she was. She forgot sometimes.

“Thomas. You’ve never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it. Why would this worry you?”

“I haven’t hurt a friend or an innocent, yet. But I don’t always feel in control. I must prevent it.”

Glain bit back a smile.

“You could pursue other physical activities. But you want to work on your punches, don’t you?” _He wants to get past this_ , she thought.

Thomas scrunched his brow in a quiet frustration and looked up at her.

“I see your dilemma,” she said. “But the heavy bag worked alright? You said you’d worked on it for some time?”

Thomas nodded.

"Can I help you with the bag?” she offered. “That’s fairly low risk for me, isn't it?”

Thomas bit his lower lip. “Perhaps we could try that, yes.”

  
  
Ten minutes later, Glain had the heavy bag braced against her, and Thomas had returned to his previous stance. His feet were fine, his arm joints were mostly stacked admirably. But he once again had completely detached his full body’s strength from the punches he tossed into the bag. The corrective observations she offered had blown past him without his acknowledgement. 

Rather than raise her voice or get combative, Glain thought she might have a better idea.

“Okay,” Glain said, after a few more blows barely moved the bag. “Stop that for a minute. Get some water.”

While Thomas was busy hydrating, Glain grabbed a pair of punch mitts out of the equipment bay and brought them back to Thomas’ station.

Thomas returned, saw the mitts, and paused warily.

“I’m really pleased you let me observe you like this,” Glain said, “but you’re not doing yourself any good on that bag, Thomas. You need something more dynamic.”

Thomas sighed. “I trust your judgment, Glain. I only think maybe…”

His voice trailed off. His brow was furrowed again, and he rubbed absentmindedly at the back of his neck.

Glain double-checked his color, his respiration, and the look in his eyes. She saw no signs of physical distress. Only signs of frustration. So she made a decision.

“Thomas. Look at me.”

He met her eyes. He was there, present to her. He just looked sad, and worried, to the point of paralysing himself.

“Do you have any respect for me at all?” she asked.

His eyes got wide in shock.

“It’s me, Thomas. You're not standing in front of anybody else. You're standing in front of me. You know me, you know how I work. You could lose your mind on me, you could become a problem I need to solve, and it would only make me happy. It would make my week! Even if you hurt me, you can’t hurt me. I offer you a standing challenge, right now, any time you want to take me up on it: do something I don’t anticipate. I will enjoy it. I dare you.”

Thomas blew a short laugh through his nose. 

Glain leaned in, and put a hand to his heart.

“Do you get it?” Glain asked.

His eyes glistened with a nervous trust. 

“Yes,” he said.

Glain drew the first mitt on. And when she handed him the second mitt, he fastened it on her hand for her. 

“Nobody else but me standing here,” she said.

“I understand.”

“Good. Then make me feel it, Thomas.”

She gave a sharp nod, held up the mitts, and watched.

He squared up, made eye contact with her, and put his best punch of the day into her right mitt. He engaged more of his shoulders on that one, and even more on the next blow.

She nodded some more, biting her lower lip in excitement as he popped the mitts a couple more times, getting a feel for his swings. His feet even moved!

“That’s it!” She said. “Float for me, hot stuff.”

Thomas’ chuckle dropped his shoulders and relaxed his hips, and while he wasn’t trying to hit any harder than soft taps, those taps were starting to resonate down her arms further and further.

Glain watched as his legs came alive, as he pulled up from his hips to make her arms waver. He _hit_ her, on her protected open palms, over and over again. And she could see the awareness of that - and his trust in himself - slowly growing in him. Once he started, he kept going, popping into her hands as he played with crosses and uppercut patterns. His force slowly grew, making her feed back into his punches to balance properly.

After a short bout of intense work, he landed a series of several hard blows, the last a wide, enthusiastic swing into her hand.

At that, Thomas stopped, and drooped a bit with fatigue. The front of his shirt clung to his chest.

He gave Glain a giant grin.

She grinned back, and let him sweep her up in a bear hug, enjoying the crushing pain of it.

“Thank you, Glain,” Thomas whispered in her ear.

“Anytime, big guy.”

When he sat her back down, he wobbled just a fraction.

“It’s been a big day,” Glain said. “Why don’t we call it there?”

He nodded.

It was a fantastic start.

**Author's Note:**

> Tomorrow: an important gift for loved ones!


End file.
